Changing...

Wow, seasons are changing here. It's cold, and overcast today. It is really fall now. I have this urge to go by some pumpkins, to have chai tea latte. Instead, I brewed some of the tea that I bought in Nepal (thanks D). It's a spiced tea. I think drinking tea/coffee was the only way to get warm some of the time. So it seemed fitting to brew a pot of this cherished tea, and just enjoy a Sunday doing nothing much other than reading the paper, finding new music on itunes, and getting caught up on a few emails.

As mentioned, I'm changing to the ICU, and will start in the morning. Though, thankfully am not on-call for a few days. I've had time to review some medicine/pediatric topics, going over ventilator management, ABGs, EKGs, septic shock.

I'm being bumped out of that comfort zone. Headed to a unit where I'll, once-again, be the outlier. Having to explain- -again-why I am here at Bara. And even more tiresome, explaining that I am both a pediatrician and an internist. That yes, it is possible to do both. That's part of what I am looking forward to tomorrow. I have no idea if I will be taking care of pediatric ICU patients, or adult patients tomorrow. The unit is a combined pedi-adult, medicine-surgery unit. I'm really looking forward to the mix. It's basically what I'm training for--the ability to manage and understand the disease spectrum and the differences in physiology etc between kids and adults.

Here are some random pics. I noticed that I really haven't posted pics in AGES. (But astute followers will know that the picasa site with my travel pics has been updated regularly, the link is over there to the side).

This is a photo taken out of today's paper. This is TRUE. We've seen it in our clinic. People are so poor that they'll stop taking their HIV treatment, in hopes that their CD4 count will drop, and they will quality for a disability grant. It's a largely held misconception that a CD4 count under 200 will quality people fro disability. Desperate times call for....

Full Circle. This makes me feel like I've been here the almost year that I have been here. The return of brush fires. And they've been great recently. It's dry again, the summer rains brought lush green grasses which have now died and turned into ripe tinderboxes. This is a shot taken on Thursday night as I drove out of town.

I'm off for an dusk run. I love when it gets dark early in fall, it's great running weather. For the umpteeth time since moving away from Dublin, I'm trying to run regularly again.

Hope you had a great weekend.